So I didn’t nap before going to work last night, and instead drank a couple cups of coffee (mixed with freshly made almond milk and vanilla sugar). Oh my goodness, I am not used to caffeine. I was WIRED all night long. I think I’ve only had coffee one other time in the past year (and never have been a regular drinker), and it was just a single shot of espresso in a (latte art) latte, so I guess I kind of forgot how much coffee is too much. I also had the second piece of corn bread and a couple of carrots. I had everything set up for a picture, but apparently I didn’t actually take it, because it is nowhere to be found on my camera.

My stomach was slightly unhappy with my coffee consumption, so when I got home all I had before sleeping the morning away was a nectarine.

When I got up I enjoyed a banana spread with hemp nut butter.

Then while I was doing laundry, every time I walked by the sixth floor in the stairwell I could smell the most delicious salmon burger someone had cooked up. So for dinner I thawed a salmon fillet and marinated it in teriyaki sauce before panfrying. Along with that I finally tried out my first can of artichoke hearts, sauteed with olive oil and red onion, and tossed with whole wheat spaghetti. The final dish was good but I don’t think I’m a huge fan of the canned artichokes, I definitely couldn’t eat them plain…I’ll be sticking to the fresh ones in the future.

And for dessert, lacking in the veggie department but feeling unambitious in the food prep department, I mixed up a packet of Amazing Grass Kidz Superfood with water. Very tasty indeed. I’m interested in finding out how different the kids version tastes from the regular chocolate superfood powder. One note, the powder sure doesn’t do a very good job of staying in suspension in water, constant stirring is a necessity.

And now it’s time for more sleep, good night! (And some more green stuff tomorrow, I promise)

Goopy sludge # 1 of the day, green brown monster. On the fruit side I chose banana, peach, and frozen raspberries. And since I knew the raspberries would muddle the monster anyways, the green side was covered by leftover beet greens that had been hidden in the fridge and almost forgotten about, plus a little spinach, and chia seeds. 1/2 cup of cooked greens looks so small but packs a lot of punch!

My late morning snack consisted of a Chocolate Chip Peanut Crunch Clif bar. It was good, very cookie like, the peanuts were a nice addition without being in-your-face peanutty like the peanut butter flavour. I would have been even happier with more chocolate chips though.

I was weird and swapped lunch and afternoon snack in the timing scheme of things since the clif bar did a good job of filling me up. At lunch time I had a container of honeydew and blueberries.

Then later in the afternoon I dipped my way through goopy sludge #2 of the day. I food processor-ized black beans, chili paste, PB2, lime juice, soy sauce, and a bit of water for a tasty spread.

And the dippers were carrot, cucumber, zucchini, and celery.

For dinner I started off with more honeydew (it’s a big melon, and really tasty!) and kiwi while I was waiting on the oven.

Then I had a fantastic serving of freshly baked kabocha, to which I added soy sauce when I got down to the outer skin layer in order to make it super fabulous.

And along side that was amaranth pilaf. I found amaranth a while ago from the bulk bins, and finally decided to cook it up with onion, parsley and thyme that got caramellized first before adding the grains and water. They’re so cute and tiny! And the pilaf had a fun chewy texture. Although there was a slight bitter taste, so I think I was supposed to rinse the amaranth first, like you would quinoa. At least I know for next time, and it was still pretty good.

And the recognition part of the day. Every day I wake up and look out my window to see a large billbord that is usually adorned with an advertisement for some CTV show. Last year I wanted to ripe my eyes out a little bit after waking to Addison Sheppard for four months. For the past few (3?) months the billboard has been bugging me because I didn’t know what show it was advertising. I figure the title was hidden somehow in the gibberish behind the guy’s head but I could never pick it out. This morning I was looking at the gibberish again and had a feeling I had seen it somewhere else recently. I suddenly came to the realization that the advertisment is for The Listener! Now I’m wondering why the sign has been up for months when the show only started airing last week (although apparently NBC aired it in March)…

B! I noticed an unintentional theme to today while going back through my photos, beets, banana, beans, berries, bagel, balsalmic… I seemed to be going through a certain section of the dictionary and eating all edible entries!

Though I would like to add a note that the quick cooking oats I used the first time blended more smoothly than the old-fashioned kind I used today. And my toppings of choice were raspberries and honeydew, sweet and summery.

For lunch I did a bit of chopping and trimming and came up with a fresh and flavourful salad of steamed green beans and beet root dressing with yogurt, apple cider vinegar, and tarragon. And on the side were two apricots that I picked up this morning, simply because they amused me in their extreme pointyness and non-fuzzyness (that are unfortunately a bit lost in the 2D photo). They were surprisingly too, apparently they’re “the first of the season”.

In the afternoon I snacked on half a bagel spread with strawberry, blackberry, and acai jam.

And a piece of chocolate. Cocoa Camino is awesome chocolate, but they could have added a few more (and larger) nut and berry pieces. Though the full size bar might have larger chunks in it, I may have to investigate that some time.

I was especially excited for dinner today after buying the beets in the morning. I usually don’t buy beets, because later in the summer I can easily get my fill for free from the parent’s garden, plus typically, I don’t even eat the root (that’s what compost piles are for, right?), just the greens, and grocery store beets tend to have pathetic greens. But today, I found a giant pile of beets sitting in the organic produce section with lots of BEAUTIFUL greens, and before I could even think about it, I found a bunch in my basket!

So for dinner tonight I sauteed the greens with sweet onion, tofu, olive oil, and a giant handful of parsley, thyme, and sage. Plus I pan “grilled” a portabello mushroom with balsamic vinegar and topped it with herbed goat cheese and tomato slices. Best dinner in a long time, the beet greens were so good!

And I did a even did a good job of trimming up my bountiful window herb garden. It’s grown a bit in the past three weeks, hadn’t it? I’ve even been cutting away at it before today…

And now for what will surely be a good Desperate Housewives finale, and getting ready to NOT go to work tomorrow, yay!

It was dark and cold and rainy when I got up this morning, which made me want a warm breakfast. So I threw some of the awesome Hewitt’s oats my mom gave me, some Dorset Fruits, Nuts, and Seeds cereal, cinnamon, and a banana in a pot with water. That oatmeal is seriously good…

While my breakfast was cooking I was busy chopping up some fruit and veggies for work. I filled the classy broken-cornered Rubbermaid container with carrot, red pepper, snow peas, cucumber, and steamed broccoli sprinkled with lime juice. And I channeled my inner Picasso while packing everything up.

The fruit side was covered by an orange, a granny smith apple, and blackberries.

For dinner I rediscovered the can of pumpkin that’s been hiding on the top shelf of the fridge. Well, it was actually in plain view, but I tend to keep my food on the middle shelf, so if I stick something on the top shelf my eyes like to skip over it. I sauteed more of the giant vidalia onion with mushrooms and soft tofu in olive oil, then mixed in pumpkin, water, pumpkin pie spice, maple syrup and a handful of chives, blended, then topped with a spoonful of yogurt for a delicious (and rather large!) bowl of soup.

I’ve inexplicably had that song stuck in my head all afternoon. And I don’t know why, I didn’t even like The Little Mermaid when I was a kid.

Anyway, my breakfast this morning was a tasty blenderful of banana, apple, chia seeds, and spinach.

And lunch was a huge pile of various peppers and a couple of carrots.

Plus a pear and brie.

And I enjoyed the last of the Morning Glory bread.

I also grabbed a handful a my chinese trail mix I keep at work since I was starving by late afternoon. I’ll get a picture some other time but it contains a variety of dried soy beans, raisins, goji berries, and pumpkin seeds, plus spices. And it’s delicious. My mom brought it back from Taiwan last time she went, but I’ve seen the same mix in chinese grocery store here.

Then for dinner I did an excellent job of cleaning out the fridge by steaming a pile of broccoli and tossing it with lime juice, stirfrying onion, mushroom, peppers, and snowpeas with sesame oil, and whipping up some egg fo yung (2 whole eggs, soy sauce, and sucanat).

Then to finish off (because I was really hungry, and that huge bowl wasn’t quite enough) I had half an enormous banana.

And now I need to go do a pile of dishes, and pack to go home for a visit tomorrow (and my mom’s birthday)! I think I’ll have time to do tomorrow’s post before leaving, but expect a weekend recap on Sunday night or Monday when I get back 🙂 Though I don’t know how much of a post there will even be tomorrow because there’s a staff lunch at work and I plan to partake since my fridge is nicely emptied for the weekend away, and the hope of a shopping trip with a car on the way back….

This raining day started out with a mishmash breakfast of a beautiful bartlett pear, and egg with salt and pepper, and a breakfast cookie made simply of oatmeal, pumpkin, a few raisins, pumpkin pie spice, and a little stevia. Random, but delicious. I’ve been putting off a craving for pumpkin for a while because I needed to come up with something to do with the rest of the giant can. I’ll think I’ll try freezing some.

And in the afternoon I enjoyed a blended green monster of a banana, a russet apple, lots of spinach, and a couple spoonfuls of chia seeds.

When I got home I put the can of pumpkin to use to make sauce for a plate of steamed broccoli. The sauce contains red onion and mushrooms sauteed in a little olive oil, then tossed with pumpkin, soft tofu, salt, pepper, and dried sage. And with a sprinkle of lime juice on top, it turned into a delicious plate of food 🙂

And to finish the night, dessert was a delightful fruit and cheese affair. Pineapple and brie to be exact. This Allegro low-fat brie tastes rather amazing, I wasn’t missing triple creme brie in the least (well, that’s probably because I haven’t had any in years and forget just how tasty it is), and was perfectly happy to save the 40 or so cals per ounce.

The good thing that I was hoping would work out today, did in fact happen. And as a result I’ve been having way too much fun in the kitchen.

But first breakfast. It was simple, and I wasn’t very hungy. I headed down to St. Lawrence Market and bought entire basket of russet apples, because they’re probably my favourite variety, and can be hard to find. So I had one along with a handful of Sahale Snacks Pomegranate Vanilla Cashews. Delicious.

In the afternoon I had an awesome green monster made with lots of spinach, a russet apple, a date, and water/ice.

Then a bit later I had a bowlful of strawberry banana sorbet.

And the rest of the sorbet topped with some raw pumpkin seed butter. I swear the butter looks A LOT greener in real life. It just refused to photograph green.

Can you guess what I did in the lobby of a stranger’s apartment building with a wad of cash after lunch today?

I’ll give you a hint, here’s my dinner about 5 minutes before I ate it.

I bought a VITA-MIX!!!!

And I love it. Thanks to craigslist it only cost me $275CND. I’ve wanted one since I saw a demo at the CNE last summer, and when I saw it for that price I knew I had to act quickly.

I also made the almond milk that I used in the sorbet, since I just ran out of almond breeze anyway. And even with making all that stuff this afternoon/evening, there’s hardly any mess at all in the kitchen.

My dinner, after blending, became a beautiful carrot celeriac soup which contained ~1/3 celeriac root, 1 huge carrot, 1 small onion, 1 Kallo no salt veggie boullion cube, ~ cup water, pepper, thyme. And I ate half of that. I had celeriac for the first time as remoulade in France, and I fell in love with it, but this is the first time I’ve cooked with it myself, so I’m so happy the soup turned out very nicely.

About Me

I’ve been overweight/obese for most of my life and at the beginning of March 2008 finally decided to do something about it. I made the eat well/move more sort of lifestyle change that’s needed to get things done and have been thoroughly enjoying it. I've lost over 120lbs so far and still have further to go but I know I’ll get there soon enough. I quickly discovered the world of food/health blogs and fell in love with them and the new ideas they gave me. I love cooking and trying new healthy foods so I hope I can share with you some of the best bits of my life and of course, my good eats.
Feel free to email me at plentifulplants@gmail.com.